Master thesis
The Use of Social Media in Sports Marketing:
The Case of Nordic Ice Hockey Clubs
Author: Joonas Saari & Jonna Tuominen
Supervisor: Dr. Richard Owusu Examiner:Dr. Mikael Hilmersson Date: 26.05.2016
Abstract
Social media, even though a new phenomenon, has gained much interest in the last decade and has been a frequent topic of researchers. Sport marketing has also been a popular topic in academia, especially in North America. This thesis will address the use of social media in Nordic ice hockey clubs, including the exploration of their social media strategies and effectiveness. Previous research has not concentrated on ice hockey in Europe, nor has it examined their social media strategies. The study is seen to be necessary, especially given the large differences in the European and North American sport cultures and business models.
The research was conducted through a qualitative multiple-case study by gathering data from both secondary sources as well as through semi-structured face-to-face interviews carried out with ten ice hockey clubs from both Sweden and Finland. The questions of the interviews were formed by the concepts derived from previous literature and the authors’ own experience.
The results indicate that Nordic ice hockey clubs are still partly struggling with their social media strategies and that with the implementation of a clear strategy, including segmentation, the clubs would be able to take advantage of the relationship marketing and branding possibilities offered by social media. In line with this, the authors argue that the social media strategies of ice hockey clubs are not as effective as they could be and suggest further actions for managers to achieve higher social media effectiveness.
Keywords
Sport marketing, Ice hockey, Social media, Segmentation, Relationship marketing, Branding, Social media effectiveness, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
"Activate your fans, don't just collect them like baseball cards."
Jay Baer, Marketing consultant, speaker and author of the New York Times.
Thanks
We would like to thank the following individuals for their much-appreciated help during the study:
The Communication and Press Manager of Karlskrona HK, Niclas Skoglund, for conducting the interview with us even the club was just about to start their relegation battle against AIK from Stockholm. We want to congratulate the whole club for keeping their spot in SHL and wish that the expansion of the arena will go smoothly and bring even more fans to the games.
The Press and Communication Manager of Malmö Redhawks, Christian Winnberg, for his time to conduct the interview with us. We hope that Malmö Redhawks are able to attract also a younger audience to support the club in the future; we are sure that this will be the case with the impressive arena and other facilities the club possesses. We hope that the Redhawks will get back to be top club in Sweden and can fulfill its enormous potential.
The Communication and Media Manager of Rögle BK, Lasse Mauritzson, for doing the interview with us on such short notice. We are sure that the club will head to new highs with the new enthusiastic management. We were fascinated to hear about the unique culture in the stands of Lindab Arena. We wish nothing but good for Rögle BK in the future and hope that the small contender from a small town will once become the champion of Sweden.
The Communication Manager for Färjestad BK, Stefan Eriksson, for not only being able to do the interview with us on a Saturday but also for inviting us to see the first play-off home game of the season with him. We were truly impressed about the atmosphere at the arena and how the whole Färjestad BK community works: Karlstad truly is a hockey town. We wish that the club will win some silverware soon, whether it be in Sweden or in Europe, to give the fans of the club what they deserve.
The Web TV and Media Manager of Skellefteå AIK, Tobias Lindgren, for arranging time for our FaceTime interview with short notice and dedicating his free time to our task. We want to congratulate Skellefteå AIK despite the fact that they lost the finals again this year; being in the finals for six years in a row is an unbelievable achievement in modern era of ice hockey. There is no doubt that the club will continue their march with the hard work by the people at office and other sport related tasks, and with the
help of their loyal fan base. We hope that Skellefteå AIK will remain to be the ambassador for the whole Norrland.
The Account Manager of Ilves, Lasse Fihl, for having time for an interview as a last work task before his Easter holiday. We hope that Ilves will get back to its grand days and is able to challenge Tappara in the battle for the king of Tampere. We were also deeply sorry to hear the passing way of Ilves and Finnish ice hockey legend Aarne Honkavaara at the morning when the interview took place and like to send our condolences to both the family of Honkavaara as well as for the whole Ilves community.
The Director of Sales and Marketing for Tappara, Aki Holma, for finding time for an interview during their intense play-off run. We simply want to congratulate Tappara:
after losing the finals three years in a row, they finally became the Finnish champion of 2016. We hope Tappara will remain strong on and off the ice both in Liiga and in Champions Hockey League.
The Marketing and Communications Coordinator of HPK, Niklas Heinonen, for being so flexible with the meeting time even when there was only one available day for us that we were able to do the interview with them. We want to wish Niklas good luck for his upcoming challenges after his time with HPK comes to an end this summer. We would also like to wish luck for HPK next season and hope they will get back to their glory days in the rink and are able to attract new, younger fans to come and see the pride of Hämeenlinna.
HIFK’s Manager of Communications Petteri Linnavalli, we appreciate that he was willing to do the interview with us during play-offs, the most hectic part of the season, and we congratulate the club for winning the regular season and reaching the finals; that tough loss will be hard to swallow for the whole club but it is fair to say that HIFK is back on the top of Finnish ice hockey again.
The Media Manager of Jokerit Iiro Keurulainen that he arranged some time for us to be able to interview him at their office in Helsinki. We hope that Jokerit will be as strong in the regular season as they were last season but will go further in play-offs as the flagship of Finnish ice hockey in KHL.
In addition to the clubs, we would also like to thank our supervisor Richard Owusu, who was always willing to dedicate time and effort in helping us, providing useful
feedback and guidance on the thesis. Furthermore, we would like to thank the examiner Mikael Hilmersson for his detailed observations and comments which helped shape the thesis along the way. Last but not least, we would like to thank our fellow student colleagues for their insightful feedback and support.
Thank you!
______________ ______________
Joonas Saari Jonna Tuominen
Kalmar, May 2016
List of abbreviations
App: application
CRM: Customer Relationship Management CSR: Corporate Social Responsibility E.g.: example given
FIFA: Fédération Internationale de Football Association FRM: Fan Relationship Management
GAA: Game Average Attendance KHK: Karlskrona HK
KHL: Kontinental Hockey League KPI: Key Performance Indicator MLB: Major League Baseball
NBA: National Basketball Association NFL: National Football League
NHL: National Hockey League
PCM: Psychological Continuum Model RM: Relationship Marketing
ROI: Return-On-Investment SHL: Swedish Hockey League SM: Social Media
SME: Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise TBK: Tammerfors Bollklubb
TV: Television
UK: United Kingdom
URL: Uniform Resource Locator WoM: Word-of-Mouth
List of figures
Figure 1 (page 32): Staircase approach to sport marketing (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000)
Figure 2 (page 44): A model of an effective social media strategy in a Nordic ice hockey club
Figure 3 (page 128): Updated conceptual model of an ice hockey club’s effective social media strategy
List of tables
Table 1 (page 14): Review of existing literature of selected topics Table 2 (page 49): Chosen ice hockey clubs in SHL (Sweden) Table 3 (page 49): Chosen ice hockey clubs in Liiga (Finland) Table 4 (page 50): Chosen ice hockey clubs in KHL (Finland) Table 5 (page 50): Presentation of chosen SHL clubs
Table 6 (page 51): Presentation of chosen Liiga clubs Table 7 (page 51): Presentation of chosen KHL clubs Table 8 (page 53): Secondary data used
Table 9 (page 58): Operationalisation table
Table 10 (page 62): SHL clubs and their attendance figures
Table 11 (page 62): Liiga and KHL clubs in Finland and their attendance figures Table 12 (page 63): SHL clubs and their social media followers
Table 13 (page 63): Liiga/KHL clubs in Finland and their social media followers Table 14 (page 141): Social media platforms used by clubs
Table 15 (page111): Advantages and challenges of social media
Table 16 (page 142): Summary of interview results in relation to main concepts
Table of contents
1 Introduction _________________________________________________________ 1 1.1 Background _____________________________________________ 1 1.1.1 Strategic social media marketing ___________________________ 2 1.1.2 Sport marketing ________________________________________ 3 1.1.3 Social media marketing in sport ____________________________ 5 1.1.4 Measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing __________ 6 1.2 Problem discussion _______________________________________ 6 1.3 Research questions _______________________________________ 12 1.4 Purpose _______________________________________________ 12 1.5 Delimitations ___________________________________________ 13 2. Critical literature review _____________________________________________ 14 2.1 Literature on social media _________________________________ 17 2.2 Literature on sport fans ___________________________________ 18 2.3 Literature on relationship marketing _________________________ 19 2.4 Literature on branding ____________________________________ 20 2.5 Literature on the measurement of social media effectiveness ______ 20 3. Theoretical chapter _________________________________________________ 21 3.1 Conceptualizing sport as a product __________________________ 21 3.2 Website marketing _______________________________________ 21 3.3 Social media ____________________________________________ 22 3.3.1 Facebook _____________________________________________ 22 3.3.2 Twitter _______________________________________________ 23 3.3.3 Instagram ____________________________________________ 24 3.4 Social media marketing in sport ____________________________ 24 3.5 Sport fans ______________________________________________ 29 3.5.1 Sport fan segmentation __________________________________ 31 3.6 Relationship marketing in sports ____________________________ 34 3.6.1 Sport relationship marketing through social media ____________ 36 3.7 Branding _______________________________________________ 39 3.8 Social media effectiveness _________________________________ 40 4. Conceptual framework ______________________________________________ 42 5. Methodology _______________________________________________________ 45 5.1 Research approach_______________________________________ 45 5.2 Research method ________________________________________ 46 5.3 Research strategy ________________________________________ 47 5.4 Case study design ________________________________________ 47 5.5 Selection of case companies ________________________________ 48 5.6 Company presentations ___________________________________ 50 5.6.1 SHL _________________________________________________ 50 5.6.2 Liiga ________________________________________________ 51 5.6.3 KHL _________________________________________________ 51 5.7 Data collection __________________________________________ 51 5.7.1 Secondary data ________________________________________ 52 5.7.2 Primary data __________________________________________ 54 5.8 Interviews ______________________________________________ 55 5.9 Operationalisation _______________________________________ 57 5.7.1 Secondary data ________________________________________ 52
5.10 Data analysis __________________________________________ 58 5.11 Quality of research ______________________________________ 59 5.11.1 Validity _____________________________________________ 59 5.11.2 Reliability ___________________________________________ 60 5.11.3 Ethics _______________________________________________ 61 6. Results from secondary data __________________________________________ 62 7. Analysis of secondary data ___________________________________________ 64 8. Results from primary data ___________________________________________ 65 8.1 Karlskrona HK (KHK) ____________________________________ 65 8.1.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 65 8.1.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 65 8.1.3 Segmentation __________________________________________ 67 8.1.4 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 67 8.1.5 Branding _____________________________________________ 68 8.1.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ____________________ 68 8.2 Malmö Redhawks ________________________________________ 69 8.2.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 69 8.2.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 69 8.2.3 Segmentation __________________________________________ 71 8.2.4 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 71 8.2.5 Branding _____________________________________________ 72 8.2.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ____________________ 72 8.3 Rögle BK ______________________________________________ 73 8.3.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 73 8.3.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 73 8.3.3 Segmentation __________________________________________ 74 8.3.4 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 75 8.3.5 Branding _____________________________________________ 76 8.3.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ____________________ 76 8.4 Färjestad BK ___________________________________________ 77 8.4.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 77 8.4.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 77 8.4.3 Segmentation __________________________________________ 78 8.4.4 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 79 8.4.5 Branding _____________________________________________ 79 8.4.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ____________________ 80 8.5 Skellefteå AIK (Skellefteå) _________________________________ 81 8.5.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 81 8.5.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 81 8.5.3 Segmentation __________________________________________ 83 8.5.4 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 83 8.5.5 Branding _____________________________________________ 84 8.5.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ____________________ 84 8.6 Ilves __________________________________________________ 85 8.6.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 85 8.6.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 85 8.6.3 Segmentation __________________________________________ 86 8.6.4 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 87 8.6.5 Branding _____________________________________________ 88 8.6.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ____________________ 88
8.7 Tappara _______________________________________________ 90 8.7.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 90 8.7.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 90 8.7.3 Segmentation __________________________________________ 92 8.7.4 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 92 8.7.5 Branding _____________________________________________ 93 8.7.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ____________________ 93 8.8 HPK __________________________________________________ 94 8.8.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 94 8.8.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 94 8.8.3 Segmentation __________________________________________ 95 8.8.4 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 96 8.8.5 Branding _____________________________________________ 97 8.8.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ____________________ 97 8.9 HIFK _________________________________________________ 98 8.9.1 Club introduction ______________________________________ 98 8.9.2 Social media strategy ___________________________________ 98 8.9.3 Segmentation _________________________________________ 100 8.9.4 Relationship marketing _________________________________ 100 8.9.5 Branding ____________________________________________ 101 8.9.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement ___________________ 102 8.10 Jokerit _______________________________________________ 103 8.10.1 Club introduction ____________________________________ 103 8.10.2 Social media strategy _________________________________ 103 8.10.3 Segmentation ________________________________________ 105 8.10.4 Relationship marketing ________________________________ 106 8.10.5 Branding ___________________________________________ 107 8.10.6 Social media effectiveness/measurement __________________ 107 9. Analysis on primary data ___________________________________________ 109 9.1 Social media strategy ____________________________________ 109 9.2 Segmentation __________________________________________ 114 9.3 Relationship marketing __________________________________ 116 9.4 Branding ______________________________________________ 119 9.5 Social media effectiveness/measurement _____________________ 121 9.6 Comparison of Swedish and Finnish ice hockey clubs __________ 122 10. Conclusions ______________________________________________________ 125 10.1 Theoretical implications ________________________________ 126 10.2 Managerial implications ________________________________ 128 10.3 Limitations ___________________________________________ 130 10.4 Further research ______________________________________ 130 References __________________________________________________________ 131 Appendices _________________________________________________________ 140 Appendix 1: Business model of a Nordic ice hockey club ___________ 140 Appendix 2: Table showing social media platforms used by the clubs _ 140 Appendix 3: A table summarizing the results of interviews in relation to the main concepts __________________________________________ 141 Appendix 4: Interview guide _________________________________ 142 Appendix 5: Interview questions ______________________________ 143
1 Introduction
1.1 Background
“As the needs and demographic makeup of sport consumers have become more complex, and as competition for the spectator and participant dollar has increased, the demand for professional marketing has also grown” (Mullin, Hardy, and Sutton, 2000, p.8).
Although the world has faced difficult economic downturns during recent times, sport has remained prosperous, with many prominent events growing larger than ever (PwC, 2011). Sport events have not only globalised but become more diversified with increased attendance figures (Bouchet, et al., 2011). This is supported by continuous advancements in technology, providing higher-quality broadcasting and the use of Internet. Thus, the rapid development and advancement of new technologies and tools for marketing has increased the professionalism of sport events (Hoyle, 2002).
However, as the markets, economy and society in our world evolves and globalisation continues, many challenges arise for sport marketers, such as increased competition and the battle for consumers’ time in our fast-paced economy (Hoyle, 2002).
It is inevitable that interactive online media channels, also known as social media, are altering the marketing landscape; the variety of information sources and virtual engagement platforms are growing rapidly (Hanna, Rohm and Crittenden, 2011). This is creating a synergetic, round-the-clock world, allowing fans to freely express their ideas, concerns and critique to the organization in evidence of millions of users (PwC, 2011).
Social media is seen as a sort of entertainment tool; as consumers have gotten used to voting for the favourite performers on television, such as the X-Factor and Idol, sport spectators want to be a part of their favourite sports through various social media channels (PwC, 2011).
Research on social media has increased in the last few years, mainly due to the vast technological improvements, such the increased availability of Internet services and devices and the capability to store large amount of data, as well as growing trends of social media usage among individuals and companies.
1.1.1 Strategic social media marketing
Porter (1996) in Mazzucato (2006, p.1) defines strategy as “organizational change” and argue that operations are strategic when it enables companies to become better than their rivals. Jaffrey (2011, p.1) states that social media is “the biggest shift since the industrial revolution, which means that the world has a brand new playing field”. By combining strategic actions with social media, a social media strategy is formed.
Social media, also known as “consumer-generated media” (Mangold and Faulds, 2009), has created profoundly new habits of communicating (Kirtis and Kaharan, 2011), rapidly evolving over the past decade (Wallace, Wilson and Miloch, 2011). Social media, which began as an entertainment tool in the beginning, has become the most recent marketing phenomena because of its remarkable advantages in the business area (Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012). Social media initially started as an entertainment instrument for online users, but later transformed to a powerful marketing tool used by millions of companies (Kirtis and Karahan, 2011); in support of this, Kim and Ko (2012) also argue that firms that are not using social media as a marketing tool are failing to engage with customers and are likely to reach a lower range of consumers.
However, social media is a broad term, thus it can be difficult to distinguish what qualifies as social media (Witkemper, Lim and Waldburger, 2012). It can be noted that social media is any type of online platform which encourages communication, participation, linkages, discussion and sense of belonging and society (Jaffrey, 2011).
Depending on the interpretation, many qualify social media as social networking sites, text messaging, sharing photos, podcasting, video streaming, wikis, blogs, discussion groups, forums and content communities (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Kirtis and Karahan, 2011). These media lie in Web 2.0 technologies, allowing online users to interact with each other in real-time (Chan and Guillet, 2011). The Web 2.0 platforms are defined as an assortment of open-source, collective and user-controlled online platforms which extend the participation, experiences, expertise and market power of consumers (Williams and Chinn, 2010). They enable various ways for Internet users to correspond, socialise and engage with one another (Kirtis and Karahan, 2011; Wallace, Wilson and Miloch, 2011) in the digital dimension and are widely used by not only individuals, but many organizations around the world.
Social media allows users to take part in planning, designing, publishing, editing and sharing processes online in an environment where the content is mainly available for everyone (Williams and Chinn, 2010; Abeza, O'Reilly and Reid, 2013; Watanabe, Yan and Soebbing, 2015). This means that users themselves are becoming producers and distributors of knowledge (Abeza, O'Reilly and Reid, 2013), enabling them to gain access to real-time information.
As Mike DiLorenzo, the former director of social media marketing and strategy for the National Hockey League (NHL) stated: “social networks aren’t about websites. They’re about experiences’’ (Wyshynski, 2009 as cited in Mangold and Faulds, 2009, p.268).
Given that social media enables one person to interact and communicate with thousands of other people, the social media-driven business model yields widespread impacts for the manner in which marketers are able to influence consumers (Hanna, Rohm and Crittenden, 2011). Marketers are able to include a wider reach, higher involvement and increased consumer commitment to the organization’s overall marketing strategy through social media marketing (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2011).
1.1.2 Sport marketing
“What makes sports events the world’s most compelling entertainment form is the emotional capital the audience invests in the outcome of the contest” (Supovitz, 2005, p.2); this is what makes sport events unique and impressing forms of entertainment. The outcome of the sport event is not known before-hand, unlike when watching motion pictures or attending concerts which more or less repeat the same pattern. Sport games are reality entertainment in their most primal form, where the drama comes from not knowing what will happen next and how the result will be (Supovitz, 2005).
The commercially-driven team sport product has originally been developed especially for the fans who attend the games (Mason, 1999). The team sport product is more than the game itself: it is the atmosphere in the stadium, clothing of the teams, equipment, music as well as pre-and postgame festivals which forms the sports product, making it larger and deeper than the match itself is (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000).
Social facilitation plays a large role in the enjoyment of the sport both as player and as a fan; therefore, it is important for sport marketers to recognize how central the role of interaction is between people in sport communities. Each customer sees and feels the game differently and has their own subjective view about the event which makes it
especially hard for sport marketers to guarantee high level customer satisfaction (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000). All the different participants of the event create a different illusion about happenings which is not repetitious since each football match or softball game is a new experience. The main attraction of games is their unpredictable and inconsistent nature, as well as spontaneity. Even if the starting line-ups are the exact same in a baseball game, the previous week’s game will be different than it is today;
thus, the unpredictable nature of sport is an important factor in determining why sport is attractive but it also makes the sport marketers job more difficult since the product is different every day and changes must be adapted quickly in order to be able succeed (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000).
Professional sport clubs are aware that they are competing for the money and time of consumers, not only against other sports and sport clubs but also against for example shopping malls, cinemas, Internet, museums and music concerts, as well as television channels (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000). Sport teams compete for the same customers who have the option to choose another entertainment form that is available (Mason, 1999). It is also essential to note that sport events are produced and consumed at the same time. Thus, games must be sold before the actual event and there is no storage or inventories in sport events. A game can be discussed and analysed in the media the next day or highlights can be shown but “no marketer can sell a seat for yesterday’s game” (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000, p.13).
Sport clubs work together to form a league product. Previously this product has mainly been for entertainment spectators but is now consumed by four different groups: firstly, the fans that attend and follow games on-site or through television and other media, and fans that purchase league or team related merchandise. Secondly, television and other media outlets who own the media rights of the league and thirdly, communities which build facilities and support local clubs. Fourth and last, the consumers consist of companies linked to the league or teams by sponsoring them (Mason, 1999).
Ice hockey, which used to be a regional sport, is now played actively in many areas (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000). In order to understand how Nordic ice hockey clubs market on their social media channels is it essential to understand their business model;
Nordic ice hockey clubs have a lot of similar features to regular businesses yet also present many differences. The main sources of revenue are sponsors and partners.
Additional sources of revenue come from tickets and others such as club merchandise,
league television rights sold to television channels as well as winning profits from the league (Ranta, 2014). The expenses on the other hand consist mainly of salaries.
Additional expenses come from other aspects such as team travel, employees’ benefits, junior and academy expenses and marketing costs (Lähdesmäki, 2014) (see appendix 1).
1.1.3 Social media marketing in sport
Markets frequently evolve and so do consumer preferences such as trends, tastes and points of interest (Hoyle, 2002). Thus, an effective marketing strategy is essential in order to monitor shifts in consumer segments and their impact on game attendance, shifting them closer to the company’s objectives.
Nowadays, social media strategy is seen as a fundamental part of organizational communication strategy (Jaffrey, 2011) and is used by large multinational corporations, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) as well as governmental offices and charities (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Kim and Ko, 2012). By developing a social media strategy further, sports clubs are able to enhance interaction and engagement, community development and attachment, drive traffic to their official websites and achieve increased profits (McCarthy, et al., 2014). The social media strategy of a company should fully address the challenges and opportunities related to the use of social media (Miller and Lammas, 2010).
Initially, sport clubs started using Facebook for marketing activities in 2006 (Pronschinske, Groza and Walker, 2012). However, as most sport organizations desire even larger and more noticeable spots in the market, it is crucial that sport marketers comprehend how to successfully exercise social media activities in order to raise consumer awareness. Professional sport clubs are devoting substantial time and resources to facilitate consumer interaction and brand awareness online (Filo, Lock and Karg, 2015). Sport clubs such as Manchester United (McCarthy, et al., 2014), Real Madrid (Garcia, 2011) and Colorado Avalanche (Hambrick, 2012), mega-events such as the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup, Super Bowl and Olympics, athletes like Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as well as sport retail brands including Nike and Adidas are using various methods to integrate social media into their marketing strategies.
1.1.4 Measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing
In comparison to traditional advertising such as television and radio, marketers need to consider issues such as measurement and consumer behaviour before the company can fully take advantage of social media (Miller and Lammas, 2010).
The direct benefits from social media marketing are complicated to measure;
quantitative advantages can be seen for example through sales conducted via a certain link displayed on a social media account (Jaffrey, 2011). Nonetheless, there is a strong indication that there are numerous other benefits related to social media for companies, such as increased exposure to the brand, higher online traffic or subscribers, refined search classifications, new business connections and co-operations, more leads, reduced costs, customer dedication and trust (Jaffrey, 2011; Stelzner, 2011). However, with the right software, it is comparatively easy for companies to count the number of views, posts, comments, followers, retweets and shares on the company’s social media account(s) (Hoffman and Fodor, 2010). It is also possible to measure clickthroughs to the company’s websites and direct sales generated through social media.
1.2 Problem discussion
Sport clubs are no longer competing with only domestic or local events and are facing fierce competition from not only other clubs and sports, but other entertainment options such as cinemas, theatres and shopping complexes (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000) as well as online entertainment options like TV-series, Netflix, Home Box Office (HBO) and international broadcasting. These options increase the battle for customers’ time and money, causing professional sport clubs to protect their terrain over both national and international competitors and develop new solutions to both attain and keep their customers. Although globalisation can be seen as a threat to live sports, it can also serve as an advantage by allowing sport clubs to attract more international fans and sponsors to increase their revenues. In order to appreciate and benefit from also the international fan base, social media provides an effective platform to implement such strategies.
“A lot of businesses go into social media without full understanding of its power, reach, and influence” (Griffiths, 2016). Due to the fairly recent development of social media, many companies are still struggling to create, manage and implement social media marketing strategies (Miller and Lammas, 2010; Hanna, Rohm and Crittenden, 2011). The use of social media in many companies seems to be “mostly experiential and
ad hoc, rather than strategically planned in organizations across a number of countries (Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012, p.303). A large amount of companies have not implemented a clear social media strategy; many companies indicate of poorly structured rules and guidelines for its employees, a lack of monitoring social media, as well as lack of coaching and support given to the personnel (Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012). Additionally, the execution of social media activities is often incoherent with what the companies have originally planned or intended to do. For example, a study conducted in 2012 claims that only 23 percent of European companies have specific social media strategies which form the objectives and policies in place. Additionally, only 29 percent of European companies use special tools and software to monitor their social media activity, thus causing many companies to become unaware of online discussions around their brand by both their employees and consumers.
According to State of Marketing’s report (Sales Force, 2015), where over 5000 companies were surveyed, many firms claimed that social media marketing, -advertising and –engagement are the most important areas to increase their spending on. Most companies see the importance of increasing their spending on marketing activities sand technology, with the Nordic countries ranking as one of the highest regions in the world to do so, and state that one of their biggest challenges is keeping up-to-date with current marketing technology and trends (Sales Force, 2015). However, although many companies claim to have a strong interest in social media and claim to possess high expertise and skills within the area, research indicates that they are still lacking effective social media strategies suggesting that their actual expertise and skills are still rather low (Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012).
Moreover, whilst most companies see social media marketing as either effective or somewhat effective, they are still partly struggling to see the Return-On-Investment (ROI) in social media marketing (Silverman, 2015; State of Marketing, 2015;
eMarketer, 2016). For example, many sport clubs seem to have a tendency to only look at the short-term effects of marketing such as direct sales to consumers and commercial clients, and tend to leave the long-term effects on branding and relationship building to a minimum (Adamson, Jones and Tapp, 2005). In addition, almost half of marketers claim that they do not possess enough resources and time to implement effective social media campaigns (eMarketer, 2016).
What is interesting is that only 16 percent of companies see social media marketing linked to their main revenue source of their businesses (eMarketer, 2016). Most companies see the social media channels as a means to either produce ROI in the long- term or as indirectly producing ROI (Sales Force, 2015). However, some companies make the mistake of only concentrating on marketing activities related to direct sales;
thus, social media which is regularly associated with customer support, maintenance and contacts, is inclined to receive low levels of attention (Jaffrey, 2011). One of the questions lies in whether companies are able to distinguish the perceived benefits from gaining brand awareness and generating direct sales through the utilisation of social media as there seems to be no clear line between the two (Silverman, 2015).
Sport marketers often undervalue segmentation and strategic marketing (Bouchet, et al., 2011). Organizations need to understand that investing in social media requires a large amount of time and resources, and should be effectively integrated into the overall marketing strategy of the company (Seppälä, 2015). Rampton (2014) also argues that a successful social media strategy means that a company is able to communicate and engage its customers online by targeting the appropriate audience. Since there is no correct answer to when and how a company should market on social media as it relies on the type of business a company is engaged in, and the types of customer profiles present, a clear strategy is needed. This path directs the company to reach the right audience and get the best results (Jaffrey, 2011; eMarketer, 2016).
Many companies will simply fail in using social media because they are not applying enough resources in order to develop these strategies, and later, not enough efforts to analyse and monitor the effectiveness of the strategies utilized (Rampton, 2014;
Griffiths, 2016). Additionally, there is no universal scale to measure social media and its effect on brand personality (Walsh, et al., 2013). Thus, companies need to determine, utilize and frequently assess clear guidelines for the measurement of marketing activities in order to assess whether their objectives are met (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000).
Marketers should acknowledge that social media is a highly intense environment which is swiftly changing and evolving (Hoffman and Fodor, 2010); however, whilst this may seem evident, many companies ignore this fact when implementing social media campaigns and assume that the social media environment and consumer behaviours are solid and steady. This is a mistake because consumer trends and purchasing habits are
constantly evolving and marketers need to stay aware of this (Hoyle, 2002).
Consequentially, the instruments and strategies for engaging with customers have transformed substantially with the evolution of social media (Mangold and Faulds, 2009).
In light of the discussion above, it can be deduced that ice hockey clubs, just as any companies, are experiencing problems with their social media marketing strategies. For example, studies have found out that many professional sport clubs have not been able to fully make use of all social media features (Pronschinske, Groza and Walker, 2012;
McCarthy, et al., 2014). The major difference between sport clubs and most other companies is the customer base which in the case of ice hockey clubs consists of fans, generally known to be more passionate, engaged and loyal to the brand than consumers of other businesses (Mullin, Hardy and Sutton, 2000). The sport-consumers tend to build a more personal relationship with the sports-product. However, sport consumers are argued to be more dissatisfied and disconnected with sport clubs than before (Kim and Trail, 2011), yet social media in seen to be one of the main influencers driving a more positive relationship approach to marketing (McCarthy, et al., 2014).
Furthermore, when most companies measure social media effectiveness through the amount of views, followers, interactions and shares (eMarketer, 2016), ice hockey clubs are likely to measure their social media effectiveness through other ways as well, such as game attendance.
Many sport clubs have expressed their worries over their social media messages reaching the intended audiences whilst also facing problems in identifying their actual online customers (Abeza, O'Reilly and Reid, 2013). This may indicate problems in segmentation strategies and effectiveness measures leading to problematic gaps in their social media strategies.
Whilst other sports have been widely examined in previous research, ice hockey has been seldom studied, especially in Europe. Ice hockey differs from many other sports due to the large amount of games played per season (on average 52-88 games per season compared to for example American football’s (NFL) 16 games per season) (Liiga, 2016a; SHL, 2016, KHL, 2016; NFL, 2016). In addition, the ice hockey season is shorter than in many other sports like football (Premier League, 2016). This makes marketing in ice hockey clubs more difficult due to the large number of games, meaning
on average 2-3 games per week causing hardship in getting all non-season ticket holders to attend games on a regular basis.
Based on previous academic literature, it is evident that there are no studies investigating how Nordic ice hockey clubs use social media in their marketing strategies, how effective these strategies are and how they target different consumer segments. It is also unclear how social media has changed the marketing strategies of the clubs and what are the perceived benefits of using social media, as well as the goals and objectives of social media marketing in ice hockey clubs. Additionally, to the attention of the authors of this thesis, no studies have focused on customer segmentation strategies of ice hockey clubs or social media segmentation practices exercised by sport clubs.
Furthermore, most previous literature on sport marketing has been conducted in North America. One major difference between European and North American sport studies in the fan culture which differs vastly; in Europe, sport club loyalty is usually determined via the religious, political and/or cultural history of the club, not location of the city as in North America (Markovits for ESPN, 2013). In Europe, there are two kinds of fans,
"normal" fans and “ultras” (meaning super-dedicated and vocal fans) (Wrenn, 2011).
According to the UK's Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC), 60% of European fans said that football is like religion to them: being a fan gives them extreme happiness as well as sadness. The same source claims that 70 percent of British football fans have cried during a football game (Wrenn, 2011). Being a fan of a club in Europe is like belonging to a tribe; most of the clubs have existed a long time and normally have strong regional identity and are sometimes also related to politics. In North-America, the club supported is more of a matter of choice than in Europe where supporting a club comes more from who you are in terms of family, location, religion or political position (Wrenn, 2011). So when European teams play against each other, it’s not just about the final score: it’s to do with so much more. For example, when Real Madrid plays against Barcelona in football, the tension between the fans is deeply rooted into their culture that it’s something North Americans hardly witness in their sport culture (ESPN, 2013).
American fans are at the sport venues to have a good day out, winning is not everything (Wrenn, 2011). Sports in North America are entertainment and are all about the show, and the game itself is only a part of the product. Fans can be happy and taking part in the “kiss-cam” and cheer for the mascot race even if their team is losing (Wrenn, 2011).
Another major difference between North American and European sports is the relegation system. In most European leagues, the team(s) who gather the least points during the season will get relegated to a lower league, when in the American model no- one will get relegated and the teams who have done not-so-well sport wise can choose prospects before others in the entry draft (Gordon, 2014). By drafting a player, the team gets an exclusive right to negotiate with the player about their contract to the sport league, for example in the case of ice hockey to NHL (Yle, 2013). Moreover, the NBA, NFL and NHL (big North-American sport leagues) all have salary caps in progress when in Europe, the player salaries are freely negotiated (Gordon, 2014).
These differences between North America and Europe have an impact on the way sport is marketed to the consumers since the business models are different, the reasons for attending sport games are partly differing and the consumers are partly looking for different types of pleasure from sports. This is why many studies conducted in North America do not apply to Europe and thus the findings often cannot be applicable to Europe. Moreover, the social media strategies of sport clubs in Europe are then assumed to be different than of those in North America.
Based on previous literature, it is also possible to state that sports marketing and social media in a sport context has been studied more widely in North America than in Europe, since a majority of the research reviewed for this thesis have been conducted in North America, with the rest performed in Europe, Asia and Australasia. This increases the demand for European academic research concentrating on social media marketing in sports. Furthermore, previous studies mainly focus on sports such as football (European), American football, basketball and baseball, as well as American college sports in general. There have also been a few studies conducted on ice hockey, such as Cunningham and Kwon (2003) who investigated consumers’ intentions to attend ice hockey games and Andrijiw and Hyatt (2009) who examined fans that are located geographically far from the ice hockey club they support. However, these studies do not investigate social media marketing strategies of ice hockey clubs. Consequently, these issues draw attention to the fact that more research on ice hockey clubs and their marketing strategies through social media need to be explored.
It has also not been indicated just how important sport clubs see marketing through social media and how different clubs and geographical regions differ from each other in their social media strategies. What is also lacking is evidence showing how to
effectively market in social media, both directly and indirectly, in an ice hockey club.
There is no research showing how these social media strategies are built and managed, the challenges the clubs face in using this media, the effectiveness of social media marketing in ice hockey clubs and whether direct links to the effectiveness of social media marketing are measured and monitored. It is also important to examine the effect of social media marketing on brand image and relationship marketing.
Data suggests that all top ice hockey clubs in Finland and Sweden have potential to grow their average game attendance since none of the arenas are filled to the maximum capacity during games (regular season 2015/2016) (see Table 11 on page 62).
Additionally, some ice hockey clubs seem to have problems with gaining followers and likes on social media channels, especially when compared to the size of the city the club is located in (see Table 12 on page 63).
Another relevant aspect to consider would be segmentation and how ice hockey clubs use different social media channels to target different types of fans, for example if there should be a different kind of strategy for each social media channel. It would also be interesting to examine how these companies analyse and react to fan behaviour online on their social media and how to target marketing messages towards different consumer segments.
1.3 Research questions
Based on the discussion above, the research question is formulated as follows:
What types of social media strategies are used by Nordic ice hockey clubs?
How effective are the social media strategies used by Nordic ice hockey clubs?
1.4 Purpose
The purpose of this research is to provide academics, practitioners and companies with a solid base on how social media can be used in Nordic ice hockey marketing strategies in order to promote the sports product at maximum potential enabled by modern technology. The research is of exploratory nature, in order to describe and analyse social media usage in ice hockey clubs and come up with relevant recommendations which enable the formulation of social media strategies and implementation in practice.
Thus, it would be relevant to see what kind of marketing strategies ice hockey clubs use
in order to be able to take full advantage of their social media accounts and how these strategies are created and implemented as a whole. Furthermore, it would be integral to discover how ice hockey clubs segment their customers, how they utilize social media for relationship marketing and branding, why some clubs are more active in social media than others, what distinguishes successful and unsuccessful posts and whether ice hockey clubs have evidence that successful social media marketing activities have increased revenues. Through the findings, the authors also aim to highlight the differences (if any) between Swedish and Finnish ice hockey clubs and their social media strategies. Moreover, the measurement of the effectiveness of social media marketing in ice hockey clubs is to be investigated to get more insight into the social media marketing strategies in use.
1.5 Delimitations
The thesis will refer to social media as the following channels: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This is due to the fact that all major Nordic ice hockey clubs have an account in one of these and the channels are widely-used and internationally known. Therefore, the research will not specifically cover other social media channels such as Youtube, Snapchat, Periscope, Pinterest, FourSquare and blogging, although some reference to them might be made.
2 Critical literature review
The table below (Table 1) presents the relevant key articles reviewed for the thesis, including the author, publishing year, keywords, purpose, method and results of each study. All studies have been retrieved through Linnaeus University OneSearch and Google Scholar by using the following keywords either together or by joining two or three of them: social media, sport marketing, sport fans, consumer segmentation, relationship marketing, branding, social media effectiveness, and social media measurement.
AUTHOR
&YEAR
Keywords Purpose Method Results
Abeza, G., O’Reilly, N. and Reid, I., 2013.
- Running events - Social media - Relationship Marketing (RM)
- Explore opportunities and challenges sport organizations face when using Social Media (SM) in an RM strategy
- Qualitative case studies - Interviews with eight sport-event organizers in Canada
- Companies use social media to meet their RM goals
- Businesses focus on building long-term relationships with customers
Adamson, G., Jones, W. and Tapp, A., 2005.
- Football - Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Study possible benefits of supporter-centric CRM and the risks of poorly structured CRM practices
- Qualitative case studies - Observation,
interviews, fan focus groups,
participation/action research of football clubs in United Kingdom (UK) leagues
- Customer segmentation strategies poorly structured in many football clubs - RM is not the main focus of clubs and is lagging behind regular businesses - Clubs reported lack of resources for marketing and customer focus
Andrijiw, A. and Hyatt, C., 2009.
- Ice hockey - Fan identification - Distant fans
- Study of fans that support geographically distant sport clubs
- Qualitative approach - Interviewed 20 fans in Canada
- Distant fans keep their team allegiances over time
- This enabled them to gain feelings of belongingness and uniqueness
- Sport clubs can facilitate these emotions by using various marketing and communication strategies to better embrace their distant fans Bauer, H.H.,
Stokburger- Sauer, N.E. and Exler, S., 2008.
- Football - Fan loyalty - Branding
- Explore the possible positive relationship between brand image and brand loyalty - The importance of brand image for fan loyalty in team sport
- Quantitative approach - Questionnaire results used from 1,298 German football fans
- Fan loyalty is positively influenced by a fan’s brand attitude
- A club’s brand image plays a crucial role in fostering fan loyalty and behaviour
Bouchet, P. et al., 2011.
-Football - Tennis - Fans - Segmentation
- Develop and test a tool for identifying different types of sport consumers
- Quantitative approach - Questionnaires sent by email collected from 120 spectators of the 2008 French Open tennis tournament and the 2008 final of the football French Cup
- Strategic marketing is essential in sport organizations, which includes segmentation, targeting and positioning
- Strategic marketing is often undervalued by sport marketers in comparison to operational marketing
Cunningham, G.B. and Kwon, H., 2003.
- Ice hockey - Fans
- Game attendance
- Study the efficacy of the Theory of Planned Behaviour in
anticipating intentions to attend an ice hockey game
- Quantitative approach - Questionnaires gathered from 136 university students registered in physical activity classes
- Individuals are influenced by social norms and significant others to attend sport events - The social aspect of sport games is crucial to emphasise when attracting spectators to events
- There exists a positive relationship between opinions towards a club and aims to attend a game
De Vries, L., Gensler, S. and Leeflang, P.S.H., 2012.
- Social media - Branding
- Explore which characteristics drive brand post popularity on social media
- Quantitative approach - 355 brand posts from 11 international brands (cosmetics, alcoholic beverages, mobile phones, leisure wear, accessories, food) were analysed
- Different drivers affect brand post popularity, e.g. positioning of post, post excitement and vividness, no. of likes, sharing, commenting.
Funk, D. and James, J., 2001.
- Sport spectators - Segmentation - Relationship marketing
- Presentation of the Psychological Continuum Model (PCM)
- Explanation and categorization of the PCM
- Help understand sport consumers and their movement along the PCM
- Qualitative approach - Secondary data used
- The PCM may provide a convenient tool for market segmentation
- It may also assist in targeting marketing activities
Garcia, C., 2011. - Football - Relationship marketing - Branding
- Highlights the importance of RM in building long-term relationships with fans in order to gain success
- Qualitative approach - Secondary data such previously conducted interviews with Real Madrid’s managers
- RM is crucial in sport organizations - This helps the club grow its fan base and improve its brand image
- A club should not base its marketing strategy on the outcome of game results Gibbs, C. and
Haynes, R., 2013.
- North American sport leagues - Social media - Twitter
- Investigates how Twitter has changed sport relations
- Qualitative approach - Semi-structured interviews with 18 North American sport media professionals
- Twitter has changed “flattened the sport hierarchy” and is seen as one of the most dominant social media platforms of today - Twitter is also the most used social media channel by sport clubs
Hanna; R., Rohm, A. and
Crittenden, V.L., 2011.
- Social media - Marketing communications - Consumer engagement
- Examines how social media has changed traditional marketing
“rules”
- Qualitative approach - Used secondary data
- Social media should be used together with traditional media in marketing practices - Social media is a “platform for influence”
Hoffman, D. and Fodor, M., 2010.
- Social media strategy - ROI - Branding
- Looks at how firms should look at their ROI in social media marketing
- Qualitative approach - Used secondary data
- Firms should focus on long-term results in their social media campaigns
- Effective social media strategies are essential for companies
- Firms shouldn’t calculate only traditional ROI but analyse consumer motivations to use social media and measure these accordingly
Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M., 2010.
- Social media - User-generated content
- What is social media and what is it not?
- Qualitative approach - Used secondary data
- Ten pieces of advice for companies using social media
Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M., 2011.
- Social media - Viral marketing Word-of-Mouth (WoM)
- Provides information into the relationship between social media and viral marketing
´- Qualitative approach - Used secondary data
- Viral marketing such as social media needs to be supported with traditional marketing
Kim, Y.K. and Trail, G., 2011.
- Sport consumers - Relationships
- Studies sport consumer-organization relationship quality and how it can motivate sport consumption behaviour
- Qualitative approach - Used secondary data?
- Proposes five components of relationship quality: trust, commitment, intimacy, self- connection and reciprocity
Macnamara, J., and Zerfass, A., 2012.
- Social media - Web 2.0 - Strategy
- Identifies global patterns and trends in social media usage among companies in Australasia and Europe
- Mixed method approach: quantitative and qualitative - 817 answered questionnaires received from companies and 14 interviews conducted with social media specialists
- Found out that many companies are struggling with their social media strategies, with difficulties among rules, policies, procedures and objectives
Mahony, D.F., et al., 2002.
- Football - Fans - Consumer motivations
- Develops a model for measuring motives which affect the behaviour of Japanese football spectators and the impact of these motives on fan behaviour
- Quantitative approach - 2012 questionnaires received from fans
- The seven motives introduced (drama, vicarious achievement, aesthetics, team attachment, player attachment, sport attachment and community pride) do not anticipate all fan behaviours
Mason, D.S., 1999.
- Marketing strategy - Sport consumer behaviour
- Aims to recognize the nature of the product created by sport leagues, which distinct groups buy the product and how the product is marketed
- Used secondary data - Professional sports leagues are a unique surrounding for marketing activities due to the nature of the sport product
McCarthy, J., et al., 2014.
- Football - Social media - RM
- Investigates problems related to social media strategy development in UK football clubs - Emphasises the impact
- Qualitative approach - Multiple case study - Used secondary data and semi-structured interviews with football
- UK football clubs are struggling with their social media strategies
- By developing social media strategies, clubs have the possibility to deliver communication and engagement, community
